


A Murderer Was A Worthy Companion

by inkvoices



Series: Licorice Allsorts [35]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Community: be_compromised, Daemons, Gen, The Subtle Knife, death of unnamed bad guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27337183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: Natalia points the knife at him and Clint can’t help but flinch.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov
Series: Licorice Allsorts [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/35503
Comments: 15
Kudos: 27





	A Murderer Was A Worthy Companion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the be_compromised [Halloween Trick or Treat](https://be-compromised.dreamwidth.org/589542.html) challenge for the prompt 'knife'. Title from _The Subtle Knife_ by Philip Pullman.

Natalia points the knife at him and Clint can’t help but flinch. 

Thankfully she looks down at the blood coating the blade, and her skin to her wrist, and draws the wrong conclusion, wiping it off on the ragged hem of her top before offering it back to him, hilt first. He doesn’t want her to think that he’s afraid of her, because he knows it’s dangerous to show that kind of weakness but also because he shouldn’t be, because she just killed someone to protect him. 

But. She just killed someone.

Fought with her hands and feet, holding her ground even though she’s only short and a girl, then pushed Clint out of the way and slid the knife from its special sheath at Clint’s waist to stab the man attacking them. Attacking _Clint_ , because he’s the one with the stupid knife that everyone wants and she could have just run away.

Clint swallows and manages a, “Thanks,” that scrapes his throat on its way out as he takes the knife back. 

The wooden hilt with its wire angels feels warm from where she’s held it. He fumbles and almost drops it, for a moment having forgotten that he’s missing two fingers on that hand, despite the fact that they’re constantly throbbing and won’t stop bleeding through the cloth wrapped around the stumps. He was kind of distracted by Natalia _killing someone_.

Clint turns the motion into tossing the knife into his other hand, thanks to years of juggling practise at the carnival. 

Juggling: something else he’s going to have to relearn how to do, if he can still do it at all.

He’s really, really trying not to think about his bow, stashed in a world he might never make it back to.

“Um, I’m not sure you’re supposed to use it for - you know,” he says, tilting his head towards the body on the ground without looking directly at it.

“It’s a knife,” Natalia says slowly, in that odd accent of hers.

She has the same puzzled frown as when she’d been explaining witches and armoured bears and all that other crazed shit to Clint that he just didn’t get, back before Spectres and losing his fingers and being in a different world became his normal. Which was all of just days ago and he’s trying not to think too hard about that either.

Behind her, her dæmon changes from an intimidating panther to a small, black house cat casually licking his front paw clean. 

“I don’t think he thinks about it like that,” he says to Natalia, flicking his tail.

Clint tries not to stare, but he doesn’t usually talk where Clint can hear him and it’s still strange hearing human speech from something that looks like an animal.

After a moment the dæmon leaps up onto Natalia’s shoulder, clawing his way up her back a little when he doesn’t quite make it, with a boost from her, and then shrinks smaller still into a shape Clint doesn’t quite catch as he slinks under the cover of her wild, matted hair.

Clint both doesn’t really get the whole dæmon thing and wishes that he had someone like that, who took everything that he was in their stride and was always on his side, even if he did things like killing someone.

He looks back down at the knife, considering the steel side and the other, shade-coloured and narrowed to an edge so keen that even Clint with his sharp eyes can’t really tell where it comes to a point. He doesn’t _want_ it. He doesn’t want something that’s killed people, that’s taken his fingers, that’s capable of cutting through anything including _the fabric between worlds_.

“Do you want it?” he asks impulsively, holding it back out to Natalia. She at least has a better chance of holding on it.

Natalia doesn’t snatch it out of his hands and run off with her prize, or say anything about him being the ‘bearer’ and how he’s supposed to keep it secret and never let anyone else use it. She just smiles, kind of offhand but with a flash of teeth.

“No, it’s alright. I’ll find another one.”


End file.
